Inmates at an Indiana jail came up with an ingenious way to work out

Inmates
at Indiana's Clark County Jail have come up with a creative way
to exercise using common jail-cell materials.A&E

Staying at Indiana's Clark County Jail can do a number on
your health.

Between
paltry meals and a virtual lack of recreation time,
inmates can easily watch their health deteriorate over the course
of a jail stint.

But one group of inmates has devised an ingenious way to
stay in shape, according to two participants on the A&E
documentary series "60 Days In." The show follows eight
undercover inmates who volunteer to spend two months in jail
in order to expose problems with the system.

As the participants learned, inmates have devised
workouts using common jail-cell materials.

The highlight of the routine involves a makeshift weight
used for lifting and squatting. According to Dion, one of the
undercover inmates, here's how you make it:

First, take off your orange
jumpsuit

Then, fill a trash bag with
water and tie it up

Place the trash bag in the
jumpsuit and tie up the jumpsuit

Slip the handle of a broom
through the jumpsuit knot

Lift and squat
away

Inmates continue their
workout by doing pull-ups on shower curtain rods, climbing up and
down their pod staircase, and running around the common
room dozens of times.

"These people had nothing but
time on their hands," Ryan, another participant, told Business
Insider.

Ryan said he noticed that
different cliques would exercise together, and sharing the
experience with them helped him gain acceptance in his
pod.

"You bond with people over working out. It's
something that's a part of the culture," he said.

Dion,
a participant on the A&E show "60 Days In," does push-ups at
Clark County Jail in Jeffersonville, Indiana.A&E

Dion said working out was necessary to compensate
for the brutal conditions. He consumed only about 1,500
calories a day, he told Business Insider, and despite exercising
frequently, he said he lost a troubling amount of
weight over his two-month stay.

"They had to put me on a food regimen just to get
it back together, build my protein back up," he told Business
Insider. "I was getting really sick when I got out
because I lost so much."

Clark County Jail only spends $1 on each inmate's meal,
A&E confirmed to Business Insider in March.

Meanwhile, Ryan said he bypassed jail food completely, and
subsided exclusively on items from the jail's commissary, an
in-house store where inmates can buy food, toiletries and
other items. His diet included peanut butter, protein shakes,
powdered milk, and vitamins, he said.

"You can't get your protein unless you got a lot of
money, or are owed a lot of money," he said.